The Serbian Defense Minister spoke about hundreds of planned maneuvers with Russia
After March 8, 2021, the Serbian government’s veto on joint exercises with foreign countries ends, after which the Serbian Ministry of Defense intends to again conduct joint exercises with Russia.
Serbian Defense Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic told the Serbian editorial office of Sputnik about this, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“We want to be a military-neutral country, we do not want to be part of any military alliance, and we also respect the decisions of neighboring countries to make decisions about their security,” Stefanovic assessed that Serbia is now surrounded by NATO countries. – We want to build good, first of all, economic relations with North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania. These are our neighbors, but we have no relatives. As for us, we also want cooperation with NATO, but not in order to be part of the Alliance.
NATO is also present in our southern province (Kosovo - ed.), like KFOR (occupation force - ed.), with which we interact. The Chief of the General Staff, General Milan Mojsilović, maintains contact with the KFOR commanders, and in some tense situations they were able to find ways to at least partially reduce these tensions.”
According to the Serbian Defense Minister, in military terms, his country wants to cooperate with the Russian Federation, China, the United States and member countries of the European Union.
“In 2020, we had slightly less military cooperation with all countries due to COVID-19, and this is not unique to Serbia. I expect that in 2021, I would say, the ambitious plans of the Ministry of Defense for cooperation not only with the Russian Federation, but only with the Russian Federation, I expect a possibly record number of events.
If this is realized, we will have maybe 100 joint events, including military exercises, and this will be the crown of our cooperation, which is growing every year, which I think is good, given our historical and otherwise strong ties. I think that this cooperation so far has contributed to strengthening our army, strengthening our capabilities, of course, bearing in mind that most of the equipment we have is either Soviet or Russian-made, or Yugoslav-made, based on what was produced in Russia,” Nebojsa Stefanovic added.
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